ocean eyes (moonlight smile)
by fiesa
Summary: It had always been her, anyway. OneShot- Lewis (Cleo). (One last summer.)


**ocean eyes (moonlight smile)**

 _Summary: It had always been her, anyway. OneShot- Lewis (Cleo). (One last summer.)_

 _Warning: -_

 _Set: Through and after season 3._

 _Disclaimer: Standards apply._

 _Hello and Goodbye. (Für Alexa, wie so vieles, für den Fall dass. Und - Danke.)_

* * *

Zane was still laughing.

Lewis had to agree, though: watching the flood of emotions mingling on Ash's face was somewhat hilarious. It had rapidly switched from impatient to appreciative (hey, three hot girls in bikinis) to sceptic (had he really seen what he'd seen yesterday?) to hesitant, back to impatient and, finally, to _completely floored._ And Lewis – yeah. Lewis knew what he felt. Even after the last two years, watching Cleo, Emma and Rikki switch from human form to mermaid so easily was awe-inspiring; the way they dove into the waves – there was no word for it. Like they belonged there. Like it was _right_. And it was.

Three scaled tails flipped in unison, sending up a spray of water.

Lewis laughed, too.

Ash realized they were laughing at him and closed his gaping mouth, scratching his head sheepishly and, at the same time, shooting them a smothering glare. It didn't really faze them – Zane, Lewis supposed, was used to much worse, and Lewis still found it too funny to feel threatened. Heroic attempt by Ash to cover up his personal moment of childish glee and _very_ un-childish other thoughts, the kind a healthy, young male might have when seeing a fairytale come true in the shape of three very attractive young girls with tail fins: duly noted.

Grabbing his bag, he rooted around until he found his snorkeling gear.

Zane was already all set-up and was marching towards the shore, his flippers dragging behind him.

"You coming?" Lewis asked Ash, who had made no attempt to change.

"Nah," the other said, waving one hand vaguely. "I'm just… going to watch, I guess."

Lewis snorted in amusement. "A bit much, huh."

Ash sighed, leaning back. "You could say that."

"Well." Lewis dumped his spare snorkeling mask and flippers on the other's stomach. "Join us whenever you feel like it."

And followed Zane, who was already diving into the depths of the ocean, following the trail of three mermaids that were laughing at them from the depths of the sea.

* * *

Cleo was beautiful.

Always had been, always would be. In the water, her element, her hair fanning out like a halo as she held her position using her hands, careful not to stir up the water too much: Lewis didn't think there was anything more breathtaking.

She was pretty on land, too, with her hair in two braids or a messy bun, her fingers constantly playing with something, her almost secretive smile. In the water, she was mesmerizing: loose limbs and perfect control, bronze skin and luminous expression. He'd lost count of how often he'd seen her like that since they'd gotten together again for real, and still, each time, his heart made a weird little twist at her sight.

She laughed, soundlessly, bubbles of air dancing around her, and stretched out her hand.

Lewis took it without hesitation.

* * *

"Why are you staring at me like that?"

The sun illuminated her hair – not a lush gold like Rikki's, not the fiery copper of Charlotte's – and made it glow, and he caught himself before he'd reach out to find out whether it really felt as soft as it looked like.

"I'm not – wait, what?"

"You're staring at me."

"Oh. That. Yes."

He grabbed his bottle of water and took a sip, just to keep his hands from doing anything stupid.

"Is there something in my face?"

"Yes. No. I mean, there – "

Her moonlight smile caught him off guard and he opened his mouth to make himself even more of a fool, and then, blessedly, destiny intervened in the shape of one very pissed-off Rikki.

"Didn't I tell you guys to wait for us?"

Cleo blushed, adorably, and turned towards her two friends. "Sorry. Here's Emma's letter. We _were_ waiting for you."

"This is disgusting," Rikki sighed while Bella hung back a bit, unsure of what to do. "You're spending far too much time together."

Lewis grinned at Cleo. "Says the one who's running a café with her boyfriend."

Rikki looked like she'd bitten into a lemon. Bella grinned. And Cleo's answering laugh rang through the clear morning air, light and clear.

* * *

"Oh. Hi."

Charlotte looked like she was feeling the exact same things he was feeling right now, too: emotions ranging from "what's she (he) doing here", over "Crap" and all the way to "this is extremely awkward."

"Charlotte."

There had been a time when his voice had had a strange pitch when he'd spoken her name, he had never been able to explain why. He was just glad it wasn't that way anymore.

"How are you?"

She grimaced. "Oh, you know. Alright, I guess. Here and there."

She didn't look like she was merely _alright._ She looked fine: the dark rings under her eyes she'd had when they'd had their last talk had disappeared, the tense set of her shoulders was gone. She'd bounced back quickly, but then, she'd always been able to adapt remarkably well.

"Oh." She turned half-way. "Lewis, this is Ben. Ben, Lewis. We…"

"We went to the same high-school," Lewis offered, quickly. The guy was giving off distinct boyfriend-vibes. He could almost _feel_ the strength of his glare.

"Well, anyway," she finished, almost hurriedly. "We'd better go. It was nice seeing you, bye!"

Lewis didn't watch them leave.

* * *

"Oh."

Cleo, when he told her that afternoon, dropped onto her bed, thoughtful. "And she looked fine, you said? That's good."

"Yeah." Lewis carefully maintained the distance between them and _felt it_. "I think she's doing okay."

Cleo cocked her head in a gesture so familiar he had to swallow. Her eyes were the color of the deep ocean.

"And how are you, Lewis?"

* * *

People might ask these kinds of questions every day, but he didn't think everyone actually meant it.

Not Cleo.

Cleo asked, and she _wanted to know._ It never was merely trivial for her, not just a figure of speech. It was what he had loved, way back, even when he'd still been with Charlotte.

It was humbling.

It was elevating, because it meant she cared. Cleo _cared. For him._ And that… it meant more to him than he could possibly say.

"Well, I guess she found someone for her, then."

"I hear there's someone out there for everyone," he said, only half-joking.

Cleo smirked. "Well, I'd better keep looking out for my someone, then."

It should have been funny, but it didn't _feel_ like it. He caught her around her waist as she attempted to get up.

"You…"

She turned in his arms so she could face him and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

"Sorry. You know I didn't mean that, do you?"

He tried to smile and was glad that it worked. If it seemed strained, she didn't notice it, or pretended not to notice it.

"I do."

 _It's you,_ his lovesick heart sang. _It's you, Cleo. It always will be._

* * *

"Why do I like her, anyway?"

Zane was tethering at the edge of the precipice, Lewis could see this very well. _Knew_ , _felt,_ because he had been there, too. He also knew nothing he could say could help Zane, either. Sink or swim, it was like that. If he found no reason to stay with Rikki, Lewis couldn't give him one.

It hurt to watch them break apart like that.

"Rikki needs me," Cleo told him, her hand in his warm and familiar, her tone apologetic. "Can I get a rain check on our date?"

Lewis couldn't suppress a sigh. But he'd seen them together long enough – how many years had it been now? Three? It felt like eternity – to actually, really _understand._ What the girls had he and Cleo would never have. Just like some small part of their relationship, of _CleoandLewis, LewisandCleo,_ could never be shared with Emma, Rikki or Bella.

"Of course."

She smiled – small, secretive, a smile that belonged only to him.

"Thank you."

He might have held on to her hand for a little bit longer than necessary, but she didn't seem to mind.

* * *

"Is that what you really want?"

Such a simple question, and so loaded with implications.

Off the top of his head, in no particular order or importance, Lewis wished for: new scuba gear, a smoothie blender for his mother (a _long_ story), for time to stop right now, for Don Sertori to be a better golf player – or, at least, more gracious in defeat, an opportunity to tell Cleo about the Berkley scholarship, for Cleo to come with him and to always be there; for a degree and a job and a house on the beach, a dog and two children and for him and Cleo to be living happily ever after.

And, at the same time, he knew: it was too much, and too soon. They were eighteen, for Heaven's sake, how could he think of marrying her and living with her and never letting her go? High-school sweethearts seldom stayed together, anyway. Mr. S was right, they'd had a good time, they'd part as friends. Maybe they needed to be apart for a while. What were two years of being in a relationship when their lives hadn't even really started? They had been friends for more than ten years, now. They wouldn't just break apart, they'd just be going back to what they had always been before…

"I want you to have your dream."

Cleo's eyes were beautiful. Desperate. He hadn't thought heart-break could be audible, all those years ago, until he'd listened to his voice mail. _You let me down, Lewis._ He knew better, now.

It still was unbearably painful.

"I can't stand in your way, Lewis. Even if that means losing you."

 _Don't go,_ her whole body seemed to plead. He could read it in the way her shoulders curved in on herself, her hands grasped her elbows. _Please don't leave me._

Or was it him, projecting? Lewis swallowed. Felt her arms around his shoulders, shaking softly, tightening until they might just have stopped him from falling apart – and then loosening again. Falling away. Suddenly, he was cold.

 _"_ _I love you so much."_

Cleo smiled.

* * *

At least they would be looking at the same ocean, he thought, numbly.

* * *

Berkeley campus was a little city in itself, full of students and professors and scientists, one hour or so from San Francisco by BART, and living and studying there was the most intriguing and by far scariest experience Lewis had ever made.

(And that included mermaids, sharks, weird powers, exploding water pipes, full moons, a bag of black-and-white photographs, scientific discoveries he would never be able to share with the world, dangerous scientists who wanted just that, angry bosses, girlfriends, angry girlfriends, the fathers of girlfriends and girlfriends that were mermaids.)

It stayed that way, even though months passed.

And even after those months he found himself wanting to tell Cleo about the new things he saw, the stuff he learned. He began letters to her in his head and caught himself reaching for his phone, and then he remembered the time shift and didn't find the time to write, and the ache didn't abate, nothing like that. It was like the distance had only increased his longing for her, not mellowed it like it was supposed to do.

Lewis went to his lectures and worked with the professors and fellow students and learned so much that sometimes his head felt like bursting, and it added to the pressure on his heart that called out for home.

He'd never thought he'd be the person to get home-sick.

Maybe, though, it only was home-sickness for Cleo.

* * *

Going back home, over a – kinda – extended summer break felt like returning to a fairytale he had long outgrown.

The moon pool was gone.

Will and Emma were together – at least, judging from the PDA they were exchanging in the middle of the _Rikki's_ – and – the heck, whatever had happened between Zach and the reason for the name of his café: they seemed Back to Square One. It was like falling right into a memory: Bella and Will instead of Emma and Ash, Rikki, as usual, riling up Zach (and Zach loving it), and – Cleo. Cleo, Cleo _everywhere_ ; with her warm skin and her luminous smile and her eyes that changed their color with the sea.

"So you came back for the graduation ceremony?"

"I heard there was a new science star in town and wanted to check out the competition."

Cleo laughed and her arms around him tightened, momentarily, silently promising not to let go. And Lewis, despite the fact that it made drinking his juice a bit more troublesome than it should have been, _really_ didn't mind.

"I am so proud of you," he told her, later, when they were alone and the heartbeat of the ocean and the whisper of the wind was the only sound around them. "I knew you could do it. The science scholarship, I mean. And I'm really, really glad you managed to save everyone."

She sighed, her head a warm weight on his shoulder. "I wouldn't have been able to do it without you." Was she talking about the science scholarship, or the comet?

"I wasn't even there," he teased her, half loving and half serious, feeling guilty and relieved, enjoying the moment and dreading its end.

Cleo lifted her head and looked at him, bright and honest and serious. "But you were, Lewis. I swear. You were there the whole time. Thank you."

He didn't have words to answer that, and he probably wouldn't have been able to say anything due to the knot in his throat, so he just held her.

She didn't ask how long he would stay, and he didn't tell her.

* * *

One of the most important lessons of his life he learned that one summer: mermaids could be _dangerous_.

Bella glared threateningly, and that was some achievement for a barely four foot three inches tall, blonde and curvy girl that usually seemed more like a playful Labrador puppy than a hound. Rikki, on the other hand, _was_ that hound, and the expression on her face – _ouch_. Lewis flinched, internally and externally. Because Rikki wasn't kind on the best of days, but she certainly was super protective of those she loved even on her worst.

Both were glaring at him, poisonously.

"Listen, we're going to castrate you with a fish hook if you ever hurt her." Jep, Rikki, thanks for the mental images.

"You're leaving again, right? And you still have three years to go. Don't string her along if you're not in for the long run."

"Maybe don't string her along _at all._ "

"Yeah, she's right. What use would it make? You can't see each other. Meeting up twice a year won't be enough."

"You know her. She'd never say no."

"But would she be happy?"

Lewis swallowed, feeling a combination of terrified awe and fond terror at their conversational ping-pong, and at the amount of threats they had managed to infuse into their really quite innocent words.

"I understand."

* * *

One summer.

Six weeks, their last summer together before he had to go back and she left for college, and it was going to be theirs and theirs only.

And then: back to college.

Cleo didn't go to the airport with him, busy with her own preparation. She would be attending University of Queensland, where she wanted to study molecular bioscience, and would share a room with Emma, who had been accepted into the technical engineering program. Bella had decided to pursue her singing, and Rikki wanted to focus on the café. It would be two and two, then, Lewis thought, swallowing. At least they wouldn't be all by themselves.

He wasn't, either, but sometimes it just didn't feel that way.

He learned to cope. He'd always been good at making friends, even if that meant that sometimes, he had to be someone else.

And then weeks turned into months, and months turned into years. And Lewis studied, and learned, and eventually began teaching, himself. The work he did was amazing. It filled up his days and his life and his head. There were people he liked, friends he made. Adventures to be had.

He and Cleo still wrote each other, now and then. Emails, even texts, sporadically. Birthday wishes, Christmas cards. Sometimes, he saw updates on her facebook page, mostly pictures of her and Emma in Brisbane, of herself at work or of all of the four girls back home in Gold Coast. He was glad they weren't losing track of each other.

When he came home to visit his parents, he sometimes met Mr. S and Sam at the pier in the morning. Kim, who had reluctantly taken over Cleo's first job ever in the Marine Park – selling ice cream – still was as exhausting and mean as ever. (At least she managed not to piss off the clients, because she hadn't been fired yet, obviously…) Zane seemed to have mellowed down quite a bit, it was hard to say whether that was because he'd finally seen reason or because Rikki kept him on a short leash. Suffice to say that he, at least, had turned into a successful business man who was able to separate his ego from his job, and Rikki seemed to have forgiven him his miss-steps of the past. Will and Bella were as tooth-achingly sweet as ever, whenever Will returned from his extended diving trips all around the world and Bella was back from her tours. And, one evening, Emma came in the company of a shy, whip-thin and bespectacled guy, introduced him as Marc, an engineering student from her faculty she was _certainly not_ going out with, and glared threateningly at anyone who dared to smile.

Lewis himself made some friends, some – if not enemies, then at least serious rivals – and went out with some women. His longest relationship actually lasted one-and-a-half years, until he was told that "you never really looked at me!" and to pack his stuff. His friends emphasized, took him out for drinks and sided with his ex, and Lewis sighed and resigned himself to his single-again state.

When he came home, he went to Mako, just to remind himself of the time it had been his life. The beach was white and untouched, but the entrance to the Moon Pool – both of them, actually – was blocked by impenetrable rubble and rocks. It was better that way, he supposed. Lewis sat at the beach and looked over the waves, and, for a heartbeat, thought he saw a copper-colored fin flash out in the distance of the shore. It was gone again before he could do anything stupid, and he dropped back into the sand and watched the night fall and the stars rise over the ocean. And then he went back.

He didn't see Cleo for four years.

* * *

Until he saw her again.

When she'd come down the stairs at her father's wedding, he'd thought she'd never been more beautiful than then.

He was revising his opinion this very second. No amount of writing texts, sending e-cards and stalking her facebook profile could have prepared him for _this_ : for Cleo walking along the pier and up the runway, wearing a sea-green dress that complemented her ocean eyes and made her skin glow. Nothing could have prepared him for the moment when she turned around to say something to the girls behind her, smiling widely, and the sun hit her hair and lit up her face. Lewis felt like all the air had been knocked out of him.

Cleo was stunning.

And then she turned forward again and saw him, standing next to a very nervous Zach who kept fiddling with his tie, and a different smile lit up her eyes in a way that was alien and familiar, new and old. A smile like no time had passed at all and four years. It reached out to encompass Zach and Lewis, waiting on deck, and the three girls walking with her, stretched to the entire boat and all the guests and lit them up, as well. Cleo's smile reminded him of home and new countries, of adventures and evenings on the couch and mornings at the pier and everything in between, of parents and siblings, best friends and enemies and strangers, and still, it seemed to belong to him, only.

"You're not stealing my spotlight today, dammit, it's _my_ wedding!"

Rikki's voice tore him out of his stupor. Will grinned stupidly, Marc took off his glasses to clean them, and Emma and Bella laughed. And Cleo smiled, and it was like _welcome back_ and _where have you been that long_ and _I missed you_ all in once.

And, finally, Lewis knew he had come home.

* * *

It had always been her, anyway.


End file.
